Have you forgotten yet?…For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flowLike clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.But the past is just the same–and War’s a bloody game…Have you forgotten yet?…Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz–The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?Do you remember the rats; and the stenchOf corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench–And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?Do you ever stop and ask, ‘Is it all going to happen again?’

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack–And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you thenAs you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching backWith dying eyes and lolling heads–those ashen-greyMasks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?…Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.

“Poetic License: Where are the African Gods?
Lyricist Abbey Lincoln’s words are brought to life in this meditative portrait of black masculinity.

A moving recording of the late writer and renowned jazz singer Abbey Lincoln is captured in this new film from Brooklyn-born director Rodney Passé, who has previously worked with powerhouse music video director Kahlil Joseph. Reading from her own works, Lincoln’s voice sets the tone for a film that explores the African American experience through fathers and their sons.”

“The film movingly captures moments from the perspective of African American men and their sons”
“Abbey Lincoln’s poem is a chilling reminder of black society’s struggle with self-image,” explains Passé. Speaking of the film’s experiment with spoken-word and music, the filmmaker continues: “The arrangement is heart-felt, capturing moments from the perspective of African American men and their sons, while celebrating the essence of black culture and honouring its significance in today’s society.”

Where are the African Gods?Did they leave us on ourJourney over here?

Where are the African Gods?Will we know themWhen they suddenly appear?The ones dismissed with voodoo,Rock and roll, and all that jazz.And jungle mumbo jumbo.And razzmatazz.

Where are the African GodsWho live within the skin, Without the skin,And in the skin again.

Where are the African Gods?Do they hide among the shadowsWhile we stumble on the way?Or did they go with heavenTo prepare another day?Where are the African Gods Who’ll save us from this misery and shame?

Where are the African Gods?Where are the African Gods?Where are the African Gods?Where are the African Gods?

Will we find them while We pray in Jesus’ name?Where are the African GodsWho live, and set us free?We are the African Gods.You and Me.

“In mathematics, plus minus indicates a choice of exactly two possible values, one of which is the negation of the other.
This is my interpretation of a couple trying to survive the insurmountable differences between them.”

the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh.

there’s no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate.

nobody ever finds the one.

the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the madhouses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice–though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles.“Mend my life!”each voice cried.But you didn’t stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do–determined to savethe only life you could save.

Meta

An Important Emerging Creative Short Film Genre.

"...underneath the young gray dawn,
a multitude of dense, white fleecy clouds,
were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,
shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind." From "Prometheus Unbound" by Percy Bysshe Shelley